#alltake

Takemichi, to put it in simple words, is hot.

All of Toman knows this and have trained to act normal around him in order to maintain world peace. They have scoured mountains high and low, crossed countless oceans and faced off against gigantic beasts most humans have never even heard of, just to be brought to their knees because of a skirt, a fucking skirt.

It all started one fine regular day, the captains of Toman were gathering today for a meeting. It was a simple affair, discussing the different areas under Toman and how they were doing. These types of meetings often had the people attending dressed in casuals, the usual black uniform hanging out to dry in the sun after god knows how long it had been worn for.

There was still ten minutes left until the meeting began, but there still wasn’t a sign of the blonde teenager coming. Normally he would be here the earliest, talking about how kids these days seriously don’t know the value of time.

Chifuyu sighs heavily, not being the only one to notice his captain's absence. A lot of people, scratch that, everyone has noticed. The usual chatter that fills the air is gone, replaced by a tense silence, only one thought on everyone’s minds, Where the hell is Takemichi?

Time passes by agonizingly slowly, less than a minute before its time for the meeting and finally they can hear the sound of shoes hitting the floor a mile a minute. Mikey is holding in barely restrained annoyance, eyes dark and a tight smile on his face.

Takemichi comes bursting in through the door, a shout of “Safe!” leaving his lips. He rests his hands against his knees, breathing heavily and looks around at the dropped jaws of his friends and immediately his cheeks explode into pink.

Just as Mikey is about to threaten Takemichi to never do that again or else, his breath catches in his throat, because what in the hell got into Takemichi for him to dress like that.

He brings his hands to his chest, feeling unnaturally exposed in the pink dress. Because it was made for someone with a chest, the dress was loose there for Takemichi and sagged, showing off delicious skin. It should’ve looked funny, but any sane (or insane) person who looked at him could only describe him as erotic, lewd, a literal succubus incarnate if you will. His hair was back to being black, showing off his pretty blue eyes. They were tearing up slightly and only made him look even more tempting.

And oh my god he was wearing garter belts.

HE WAS WEARING GARTER BELTS!!

They were the same shade as his dress, and only served to make him look even more submissive and breedable.

In a shy manner, his hands went towards the bottom of his dress and tried to tug them, although it did more damage than good considering you could literally hear the control of several teenage boys snap at once.

If Mikey had been a lesser man he would have immediately jumped Takemichi, too bad he was. Thankfully Draken still had enough thinking power left in order to hold back the commander. As much as he wanted to do the same, he had to hold himself back for Takemichi’s sake.

Baji was biting so hard at his rubber band that it snapped and hit him in the face. That seemed to clear his mind a bit as he stared at the horndogs around him, a hand on his cheek that was steadily becoming red.

Kazutora was lying on the floor, barely alive after receiving a punch capable of sending a man to heaven because Hakkai caught him in his ‘I am going to jump takemichi’ stance. Don’t even ask how he knows about it, Hakkai would rather not answer.

Draken & Mitsuya: Actually what started this entire thing. I saw some fanart here and there of Draken as an actual dragon, which of course had me thinking that Mitsuya should get to be a dragon too (they're the twin dragons after all! come on!), and it also got me thinking about how eastern dragons are associated with water, and that morphed into them being dragon river gods. (Of course Haku from Spirited Away also came to mind there.) Additionally, while they're both dragon river gods, I wanted to show them being two different-yet-the-same kind of kami. As in, Draken's river is infamous for its violent currents and somewhat feared / at the very least treated with a lot of cautious respect, but even though ships constantly sink, barely any humans ever drown because he keeps saving their lives (probably being pretty annoyed that this keeps happening though, lol). Meanwhile, Mitsuya's river is a lot calmer, vitally important for farmers and associated with harvest, and he's often mingling with humans and handing out little gifts (food, mostly)... but humans are still cautious because he's known to not fuck around when angered. I personally just really like that kind of dichotomy. Also, since I used the concept of kami having two souls, one "gentle" and one "assertive", I wanted to actually show what that contrast looks like, and the character that first came to mind for that was Mitsuya and it's not just because he's my fave and I like it when fics show his capability for being dangerous too shh shut up

Mikey: Was the very next one I decided on. I'm a liiiittle bit obsessed with all things kitsune (if that wasn't obvious), and since they're so iconic, powerful, and often portrayed as tricksters, that role really fit Mikey the best. And since he'd of course still be everyone's leader in this AU, I soon started thinking about the concept of kitsune becoming/being gods (it helped that I was already playing around with it for my Blue Lock yōkai AU), and that then led to considering the thing about kami having two souls, Mikey being cursed like in canon, and how his and Takemichi's relationship would play out with that kind of power imbalance between them... and long story short, that's how the short story got long. *Kazutora voice* It's all Mikey's fault! Also, because it was only hinted at in the actual fic: The half of his soul that he was missing was his "gentle soul". But just like Takemichi, you were probably able to guess that yourself :D

Chifuyu: Also really easy. That he was going to be a cat yōkai was a given! At first I made him a nekomata, until I realised that a bakeneko would be more fitting since nekomata are pretty malicious in legend. Sadly, that meant I couldn't give him that iconic forked tail since that's something only nekomata have, not bakeneko :( And of course I translated his canon interest in shōjo manga to a more historically accurate interest in romance novels, hehe.

Baji: I wanted him to be some kind of canine yōkai and I thought about making him an inugami at first, but that didn't really feel right (and there's already a certain other character who fits the bill much better...), so I looked up whether there are other dog yōkai, found the okuri-inu... and further down in that same article, I encountered the okuri-ōkami; and that just fit perfectly thanks to Baji already being somewhat associated with wolves! Also, I felt like the legends about okuri-ōkami either attacking or protecting humans depending on how one behaves towards them fit Baji's infamously unpredictable nature.

Kazutora: Another one where I immediately knew in what direction I wanted to go. Obviously, he needed to be a tiger. And thanks to me being occupied with a certain yōkai-themed D&D supplement at the time that includes raijū - and has them looking tigrine - I landed on that very quickly. Raijū get represented by a multitude of different animals, but one of them is tigers, so that fit the bill perfectly (and as an aside, whenever you see a tiger-like creature with electricity powers in any kind of Japanese media, you can be sure they're inspired by raijū). Also, again, a creature that is fittingly dangerous and unpredictable. You'll probably find out why exactly he and Mikey have such a complicated relationship even in my AU in a future oneshot...

Hakkai: There's a very early version of this story where Hakkai is also a normal human who is just very (VERY) devoted to Mitsuya Ōkami. I decided not to go with that pretty quickly because I wanted Takemichi to be the only "outsider" and not have someone to bond with over being in love with and loved by a kami. Sorry, Michi, you're not getting someone to relate to yet 👀. Then I quickly landed on Hakkai being the kami of something very specific, and a seasonal wind was the first thing that came to mind (maybe because that fits the swirl design in his hair? Maybe? I mean, it somewhat does, right...?). And so he became the kami of the southwestern spring wind, while his way more mature older sister became the harsher, colder autumn east wind (I spent so much time trying to research seasonal wind directions in Japan for this...). For Taiju on the other hand, the first thing that came to mind was him being the kami of a mountain; one, because I feel like the concept of mountains being/having kami is also pretty iconic, and secondly... have you seen how that man is BUILT. It's a bit of a joke about him already being a mountain of a man, lmao. But I'll probably get into more detail about him in a future oneshot, so I'm cutting it off here. Poor Hakkai already had to share enough of his spotlight.

Smiley & Angry: An easy choice here. Do I really have to explain why I made them oni? Canon already took care of it for me 😂

Mucho: Now we're getting to the more difficult ones. I don't remember exactly how I landed on a dōsojin for him - I think I settled pretty quickly on making him some kind of guardian figure because I couldn't think of anything better and it does fit his canon role... well... at first. And I sort of alluded to the question of his allegiance by not making him a guardian of the shrine complex or Mikey's court, but specifically of pilgrims on their journeys. His actual duties and area of influence lie outside of the shrine complex... This might get brought up at some point.

Sanzu: I really didn't know what to do with him at first. I wanted him to have his iconic katana in some way or other, but other than that, I really struggled with his role. But then it suddenly occurred to me that there are so many stories about cursed/possessed swords, so he could be the katana! He's a literal sword demon - sort of like in canon, lol. Once I got it, this became one of my favourite choices for the AU. I then remembered playing Ōkamiden and that the demons in that game have veils covering their faces. So of course, I had Sanzu wear a veil in place of his mask (only that it doesn't cover his entire face like the inspiration - just the areas that would be covered by his mask). Everything came together so perfectly. I'm still really proud of this one :D

Pah-chin & Peh-yan: Another difficult choice that took me a while. I think they were the last ones I decided on. Inspired by the scene where Takemichi meets them for the first time in canon, I wanted to make them guardians of the shrine complex and Mikey's court pretty much from the start. I just couldn't settle on what kind of guardians. I briefly considered making them dōsojin before I ended up giving that role to Mucho instead. Then I considered guardian lions or komainu since they also always come in pairs (and Pah and Peh just belong to each other, let's be honest here). The vibes didn't really work, though. And finally, I landed on kado-mori-no-kami. There aren't really many sources about those, but I decided that Pah and Peh were just going to be magical statues that come alive to deal with intruders. Insert a joke about heads made of wood here, lol.

Hanma: Another one where canon already presented me with a clear choice. He's a shinigami - naturally. But when researching the actual lore about shinigami, I found out they're a relatively modern concept and they don't really have any clear-cut identity. Which was just fine by me - I took a lot of creative liberty with his powers.

Kisaki: I won't get into too much detail about him since I'm saving that for a potential future oneshot, too, but as soon as I realised my little FWP (Fluff Without Plot) oneshot did, in fact, have a plot now (and wasn't going to be all that little either), I decided that he would naturally take up the villain role as a scheming kami in Mikey's divine court. He's a kami of scholars because of the whole top-of-his-class thing and his studious nature, of course. But he's also a kami of strategy for obvious reasons deplorable little chessmaster that he is, and he's prayed to especially by scheming court nobles. He's the patron kami of political maneuvering and courtly intrigue. Or, y'know, he was. 😌

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